Career passion
Do you discover or cultivate it?
Image: Forbes.com
What’s the worst career advice? Sunday Herald columnist Paul Catmur reckons you should ignore anyone who tells you to ‘follow your passion.’ His evidence – he hasn’t found anyone dumb enough to pay him to go fishing, or to follow any of his other passions.
And there is research illustrating why it is dumb to think that following your passion will necessarily work out well. Carol Dweck, famous for distinguishing between fixed and growth mindset has (along with other colleagues) researched fixed and growth ideas about career passions. People who believe that you’ve either got the passion or you don’t (an example of a fixed mindset) are less likely to persist with a task related to their “passion” when the going got tough.
For fixed career mindset people, finding who find that they do have to “work” rather than “flow” through the challenges of their chosen passion may mean they are more vulnerable to throwing it in and going for something else when it gets tough.
People demonstrated they were able to move to a more flexible or growth view on career passion or interests through relevant examples.
This fits with the career advice offered by Eric Schmidt (ex-CEO and Chairman of Google): choose your industry, then your job, then the right company. Schmidt assumes that it’s easier to switch jobs than industry. You might need to learn to believe in biotech or cultivate a liking for construction or develop an enthusiasm for logistics.
Of course you might still have a passion for fishing, but you’ll have a job that you appreciate to fund that passion.